10 animals & 10 Plants - In a Museum?

[NJCubScouter]

While I agree with BW, Neil, LisaBob etc. on where the activities for these requirements need to be fulfilled, I do wonder about the idea that a Scout (or Scouter) needs to look at other pages in the handbook in order to interpret a requirement. Those pages are there to give the Scout information to use in doing the activity called for in the requirement, but I think the requirement ought to stand on its own. If it is ambiguous, they ought to fix it.

 

On the other hand, it never would have occurred to me that these requirements could be passed in a museum, zoo, or anywhere other than the good old outdoors. (Although the "in your community" part is interesting; I'm pretty sure that all the boys in our troop do these requirements on monthly camping trips (often more than one trip to complete the entire list of 10 animals) or at summer camp, which (with the exception of the occasional very local weekend camping trip) are not actually in our "community", but close enough I guess.)

 

Bottom line is, it's common sense that the requirement is asking the Scout to identify and show evidence of the plants and animals in their usual places of residence, not where someone else has collected them and brought them together. And by the way, I have seen Scouts try to pass the animal requirement in the winter, including in the snow, where almost everything except us are nestled away somewhere warm. It isn't so easy, they have to think a little more and try a little harder, but that's part of the point, right?

[Stosh]

Maybe it's because the hundreds of pages of explanation are not the requirements. Requirements for advancements are the requirements, explanations are just that, they are not requirements. They may offer some suggestions to fulfill the requirements, but again, they are not the requirements.

 

Even the requirement itself has different meanings to different people. Some say this requirement in question is an introduction to the outdoors. But so is camping, and hiking, and a ton of other things the boys do. In an urban setting, when mom says she's not going to give you a ride today in the SUV and you're going to have to walk to school, that's the outdoors, too! So is recess! Duh! I say it's more for observation, learning and understanding the environment the outdoors has to offer. Museum? Maybe, it's hard to understand a bald eagle if one has only seen pictures of it, but a stuffed bird will give the boys something to consider. Interpretive center/zoo? We have one where all the local animals are in our zoo. I'm thinking it's a stupid idea, but hey, the city paid for it and the boys can go and see the animals alive. Out in nature? Sure, some sort of animal walked through the snow here. Let's all guess what it might be because no one really knows for sure anyway. There's a bird, a sparrow... Okay, is it a barn sparrow, field sparrow, English sparrow? or any one of a couple of dozen sparrows in the area. And of course the hole in the ground. Who dug it? Maybe a badger, or a fox, or a... Let's all guess, but give him credit for it because it's evidence of an animal, at least a digging animal.

 

This past week some environmentalists were in court with a case complaining because the caretaker/ranger of the local wildlife refuge was not doing his job. Someone had come into the preserve and had been harvesting some of the nicer trees for lumber (about 20 trees were in question). They were all cut down and piled nicely and would have been carted off if some of the more observant environmentalists hadn't stumbled upon them. The court threw the case out of court when it was show that the trees had been gnawed off at the one end by an "alledged" beaver. Simply being out in the woods and being observant are two different things and one can very easily learn what a beaver does from a museum, a nature center, interpretive zoo or the outdoors.

 

I learned how to identify all the different sparrows at my bird feeder, identifying over 30 different kinds on my feeder one winter and yes, I did it by looking in a book! and comparing it to the different birds. They're called field guides and I have a bunch of them and I have learned a ton of information sitting on my sofa so when I go outdoors I can be more observant of my surroundings. Is that cheating? Is that an "on my honor" thingy? I don't see the comparison...

 

Take a 18"X18" picture frame. Go out in the woods and toss it. Then have the boys "identify" everything they see inside that frame. Every leaf, bug, animal, plant, seed, etc. If they don't know what it is, draw a picture of it, take it home and look it up in a book. Take a picture of it, digitial cameras are on every boy's cell phone. Do your boys know the difference between an earthworm hole and an ant hole? Look for the worm poop. Duh!

 

When the boy's are done have them wood burn their names on their hiking sticks with their magnifying glass. Perhaps they could learn to start a fire with that magnifying glass using the cattails and milkweed plants they find. Better yet, if their picture frame had a piece of chert in it, they might be able to have fun with that too.

 

Stosh

[Bob White]

More folks need to actually read the Handbook.

[Lisabob]

Ya know this is one time I find myself in agreement with Bob White.

 

Let's not make this harder than it is. Get the boys outdoors. Teach them a thing or two about observation, and get them started. You want to get more technical but you don't know an oak from a maple? Great, encourage their PL to call the local nature center/state park/forestry program, and ask for help!

 

Of all the things to argue and disagree over, this one just seems like a no-brainer to me.

 

 

[SSScout]

First, take a walk down the trail near to your campsite and note the "animal signs" you can find.

Then, take your newbie Scouts down the same trail and point out the beaver gnawed tree, the acorns chewed by squirrel, the woodpecker hole, the possum scat, the ant hill, the woodchuck/fox/gopher holes, etc.

 

Then, turn'em loose on a DIFFERENT trail, and see if they can find the stuff on their own. Or ask'em to point stuff out as you hike in to camp.

 

Camp on beach? Hike in upland woods? Park in the city? each different challenges, each a possibilty.

 

Museum? Zoo? Learning yes. Requirement passing, no.

[Stosh]

Of course a scout can "complete" the requirement at the museum. If he goes out into the woods, finds collects, presses and mounts 10 different tree leaves, returns home to the library/museum and thus learns to identify them, he will not "complete" the requirements in the woods but he will definitely complete them once he has learned about them from the resouces available in the library/museum.

 

Interpretation of the question varies from one person to the next. Take the requirement, and have fun with them, scouting is supposed to be fun, not just another school assignment they have to do to get their patch/grade.

 

Stosh

[evmori]

Yeah oddly enough I agree with Bob that the handbook should be read. That said, I also agree with those who state the requirements are exactly what they say they are and all the rest is helpful information.

 

Ed Mori

A blessed Christmas to all

[SctDad]

I have not seen a current Boy Scout hand book, But I remember that my handbppk had many pages on how to identify things in the OUTDOORS. Why are we going to a museum. If that is the case, then why not just use the internet.

 

GO OUTSIDE. It is not that difficult. There has got to be some kind of park in your area. Quit trying to pencil whip the requirement. I think that it should be said that going to a museum to identify plants is not the way to do it. If you have to, check out some materials from the library and take the book with you.

[Bob White]

Bald Eagle

Sea Gull

Canada Goose

Deer (Tracks)

Rabbit (Tracks)

Cardinal

Grackle

Red Tail Hawk

Skunk (smelled him)

Opossum (they really need to hang around some chickens because they haven't a clue on how to cross a road.)

 

There's my 10 since Sunday. No hike, no museum, no throwin' nothin into a field, just paying attention to the world around me. Isn't that the real lesson we are trying to teach the scouts?

 

BW

 

 

 

 

[Stosh]

Very good BW, but where do the boys go to learn WHAT to identify. There are a ton of boys out there that have a major chore just identifying simple birds and dandelions when they are in bloom. Otherwise they know nothing. What 10 plants and animals are they going to identify? I tell my boys that a little time with a field guide, library books, internet, and museums/interpretive zoos will give them the background to actually DO the requirement. I have spent way too many hours standing out in the woods with boys who can't identify the simplest of plants and animals. There's a squirrel, a bird, a tree, a bush, a fish, a snake, etc. This is not identifying anything other than their own ignorance. Boys do not learn in a vacuum and one boy who can't identify jack, won't be able to teach another scout anything either.

 

Maybe this is just one of those times when a SM can impress his fledgling little impressionable scouts how mysteriously learned he is by identifying so many things in the great outdoors. For me, the boys learn best by doing, I'm not ready to turn the outdoors into a lecture hall for me to expound my knowledge. The boys will have to actually identify plants and animals and they're going to have to learn what they are first and they do that just like the rest of us did, books, libraries, museums, internet, tv, etc.

 

If a SM points out a bird on the way out on a hike and the boy parrots back that he identified when they return the same way they came, this is not learning, this is going through the motions to get a rank badge.

 

Sorry, museums are vital to the knowledge base of the boys because they can get a intense amount of information in a small space of time and place whereas he may have to wander around for along time looking for a species of animal he happens to have learned from some childhood book he once had.

 

One of the problems I have with the requirement system traditionally pursued by many units is that it produces more patches than it does knowledge.

 

Stosh

 

Stosh

[Twocubdad]

It's been suggested and I would agree that the main problem is the leader is unable to identify the animals or plants himself.

 

I'm pretty handy at plant identification, having grown up next door to a lady with an incredible wild flower garden. "Move your fat foot! You're stepping on my Trillium" was a good way of learning what a Trillium looks like. A good friend of mine always teaches this section at outdoor leader training and is very good at it. He's a real mountain man and not only identifies the plants and animal signs, but talks about the various folk uses of each. He really makes it interesting -- I could spend days in the woods.

 

But if you haven't grown up with it, or spent a lot of time in the woods learning it, I don't think many folks are going to learn it well enough in the hour-long training. But there's nothing wrong with learning this stuff along with the Scouts. There are a number of really good guide books available. There's nothing wrong with looking up plants and animals in the books along with the Scout. I recommend guidebooks which are very specfic to your geographic area. It's frustrating to spend 10 minutes deciding which tree you're looking at only to read further and learn that what you think you've identified is only found in the Mongolian Stepps.

 

I would also advise not to make it more difficult than it needs to be. There are at least 15 or 16 common varieties of oak trees in our area. "Red oak" or "white oak" is close enough for me. Likewise, "hawk" is okay, too. I don't need the model number.

 

I also like the square-foot-nature game, too. I done this before in the lawn in front of the Scout hut. It is amazing how many different plants and animals you can find in a 12x12 block if you know what to look for.

[Bob White]

You know I think a 10.5 year old knows a lot more than you give him credit for.

 

You cannot convince me that by the time a boy is scout age that he doesn't know 10 animals. They might not all know the same 10 and they might night know all the ones you point at, byut that is not how the requirement works.

 

Where do they learn, hopefully you are helping them to understand that they learn everywhere. How about during a pre-opening activity at the next troop meeting. How about at school. Maybe from a library book, or on the Internet. Maybe you just put up some nature posters as meeting room decorations. Maybe a trip to a nature preserve or even a museum.

 

Where the confusion seems to be is that some scout leaders don't understand that the learning phase and the testing phase aren't suppose to happen at the same time. Their should be some practicing in between. The test comes in the application. Don't test scouts. Instead create opportunities for them to use the skill and then catch them doing things right.

 

What makes anyone think that the scout has to be on a scout activity to apply these skills. It's his advancement, it's his handbook. if he sees a rabbit run through his yard he should be able to get his handbook turn to page 92 and write in "rabbit".

 

You are on a campout and you see some raccoon tracks in the mud. You know that Billy is working toward Second Class Rank so you call him over and say "Billy look animal tracks, what do you suppose they are?" if Billy says that they are raccoon tracks, you tell him he's right and to be sure and add it to his list.

 

If he says it's a dog, you say "you think so, lets check. And you get out your animil ID resource book from your traveling library or backback, and you compare the print to a dogs. "Hmm doesn't a ppear to be a dog, what other animals would live out here?. Eventually together you discover its a raccoon. "Well next time we'll both know, I woulld n't be surprised if that aren't more tracks around here. if you find any more let me know".

 

Sometimes we are teaching, sometimes we are testing, the scout doesn't need to know either is happening.

[NJCubScouter]

BW says:

 

What makes anyone think that the scout has to be on a scout activity to apply these skills. It's his advancement, it's his handbook. if he sees a rabbit run through his yard he should be able to get his handbook turn to page 92 and write in "rabbit".

 

If those are the only facts, I don't think the rabbit counts as one of the 10 for the requirement. It says "identify and show evidence". Showing evidence means showing it to someone. Who did he show it to?

 

Your next example, with the raccoon, is a good example of passing the requirement. The Scout identified and showed evidence of the animal having been there.

[HobcawChaos]

We have seen both "Palmetto Bugs" (giant SC roaches) and a lizard in our meeting space but I'm not sure that counts....Why don't we just work on our Your Outdoor Surroundings badge inside? It's not as hot/cold/wet and we'd get it done before the next camping trip?

 

As a leader it is hard when requirements make you stretch but that's part of the fun. It's also a perfect opportunity to get to know that neighbor who worked in forestry better or to take advantage of a program at a nearby state park. I did the former to help with tree identification. My knowledge up to then had been big hardwood versus pine. But forestry neighbor and I walked around in the woods for an hour or so. Then armed with a scout level tree guides from the university extension and a laminated folding field guide from a bookstore, tree ID was covered in two parts: leaf identification inside (made up envelopes of leaves, berries, etc that each patrol needed to id) and a what is it? walk around the meeting place. We still try to id trees on hikes - it's good reinforcement.

[Narraticong]

I'm on board with the others that say get yourself and your boys outdoors. And that means more often than just your monthly hike or campout. Instill in your boys a love of Creation and a desire to be part of it.

 

Way back in the early '70's, when my troop would go on hikes, our Scoutmaster would identify trees as we went along. I remember it as just being part of observing what was around us. He would show us an osage orange and its cool fruit, then maybe the difference between red and white oaks. It was all done just as part of the conversation, never as "instruction". We also often borrowed his field guides to look things up on our own. Some time later we might feel brave enough to pass the requirements. But that was in the day before 13 year old Eagles...and I think therein lies part of the problem today. We rush too much to Advance, rather than focusing on "learning".

 

As with all Scouting requirements, I believe a simple tip is to think why the requirement exists. I think the identification requirements are there to instill that love of the outdoors. By using the internet, books, or museums, we can develop a boy who can identify things from the outdoors. But by taking him into the woods, we can develop a boy who desires to be out among the smells, sights, and sounds of Creation.